by Mick Loates

Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) held its Annual General Meeting on Saturday 20 February at Conway Hall in central London. It was as lively an event as ever, with a number of decisions taken in preparation for this year’s and next year’s Labour Party annual conferences. Pete Willsman, a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and CLPD secretary, gave a report on the activities of CLPD over the last 12 months and an overview of last year’s Labour Party conference.

Christine Shawcroft (NEC member) gave the NEC and National Policy Forum (NPF) reports. Christine told the meeting that late parliamentary selections had been a prominent feature on the NEC over the last 12 months. The NEC parliamentary panel did not always take into account the views of the local party when shortlisting candidates and the supposed fast track selection process actually took longer that the usual one! The NPF was not meeting before the general election, with Party members being asked to email manifesto contributions to Ed Milliband. With Constituency Labour Parties (CLP’s) describing this lack of democracy as “outrageous”, Christine suggested joining CLPD to fight this.

Kelvin Hopkins MP gave the Parliamentary Labour Party report. Kelvin told the AGM that at the many and varied meetings he speaks at socialist policies, based on a humane and rational society, were popular, relevant and seen as common sense. Kelvin said that we must re-establish democracy in the Party, and the affiliated trade unions have the power to achieve this. He pointed out had PFI had cost the country £300 billion, paying privateers huge sums to build projects and retain them in their ownership. Kelvin highlighted the “Forming a Coalition for Labour Victory” meeting, to be held at Conway Hall on 6 March 2010, 10.30am to 4.30pm. Speakers are Michael Meacher MP, Richard Fletcher and Kelvin.

Former Labour Party General Secretary Jim Mortimer spoke on union issues. Jim said the current anti-union legislation was more restrictive than that in 1906, with employers calling their lawyers when strike ballots are called. Whilst there are more left wing general secretaries in unions today, the unions appear to have less influence in the Party. Legislation was required to encourage collective bargaining and protect trade unionism, and trade unionists must press their unions for more effective representation in the Labour Party.

After regional CLPD reports, resolutions to the AGM were debated. These included very lively debates on the parliamentary selection procedure, recent councillor candidate selection procedures adopted in the London region, the Alternative Vote system, a directly elected Party Chair and even the understanding of economics for parliamentary candidates!